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Sunday, January 1, 2017

I am amazed
by how many people don’t have a pickle hanging on their Christmas tree. Of all
of the wacky traditions out there, like hanging a parasitic plant in your house
and kissing anyone who is underneath it, dangling a dill from the branch of an
evergreen tree that you chopped down to put in your living room doesn’t seem so
strange.

Truthfully,
I haven’t always done the Christmas pickle thing. In my family growing up, it
was a spider that was hidden in the tree. Whoever found the spider got to open
the first present. (Being an only child, I had a 100% success rate at this
game.) It wasn’t until I was older that my high school German teacher gifted me
a tiny glass pickle. I’ve never had a pickle-less tree since.

The origin
of this holiday custom is steeped in mystery. No one quite knows why anyone
started hiding pickles. Some think it’s a German tradition, others do not. There’s
one school of thought that thinks there was an ornament salesman at some point
in time that had an excess of them and dreamed up the idea. Other folklore
includes stories of a Civil War soldier who was a prisoner and begged for one
last pickle before he died. The pickle apparently gave him the strength to
live, and he did. Another rather morbid tale is about two boys that traveled
home from school and stopped at an inn. The evil innkeeper killed the boys and
put them in a pickle barrel. Later that night, St. Nicholas stopped by, found
the boys, and miraculously brought them back to life.

It may
surprise you to learn that Berrien Springs, Michigan, calls itself the
Christmas Pickle Capital of the World. In early December there is a festival
and a parade led by a Grand Dillmeister (I am not making this up) who passes
out fresh pickles to visitors. They have even expanded to a second Pickle
Festival in the summer, which includes such fun as a dunk tank, a midway, and a
pickle fling where people can try to beat the record held by a Mr. Rago that
stands at 292 feet, according to a news article from July, 2000. I can only
wonder if that astonishing feat has been accomplished in the last 15 years…

So whether
it was two boys in a barrel, a dying solider, or a salesman wanting to survive
at his job, apparently the legend of the pickle is one of existence and life.
If it’s celebrated by marching in a parade or flinging a pickle, or by simply
hiding one in the boughs of our Christmas trees, I think is a pickle is a dill-lightful
way to make anyone’s holiday a little happier.

So get yourself
a glass pickle if you don’t have one. I dare say you will “relish” it for years
to come.

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Karrie McAllister writes and mothers from Small Town, Ohio, where she is also in the running for having the most unrelated part time jobs. Her column, Dirt Don't Hurt, has appeared on numerous Web sites and newspapers since 2005, and this blog is how she keeps track of them all until she can publish another book. Contact her at KarrieMcAllister [at] aol.com